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| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | Contact: | Tim Schultz |
| January 12, 1999 | ||
| 202/833-0100 | ||
| 800/787-8216 |
UTAH'S OFFICIAL ENGLISH INITIATIVE UNAFFECTED BY COURT RULING
The United States Supreme Court has refused to hear a case involving Arizona's official English law, but that should not affect the drive to make English the official language of Utah in any way, according to U.S.ENGLISH Director of Research Eric Stone.
"The Supreme Court has not ruled on the constitutionality of official English legislation," said Mr. Stone, "and their refusal to hear the Arizona case does not set a precedent. Only Arizona is affected by this decision, not any of the twenty-five other states with official English laws."
In April 1998 Arizona's State Supreme Court struck down the official language amendment to the state constitution as being overly broad. The court pointed to more narrowly crafted official English laws such as Montana's 1995 law and Wyoming's 1996 law, saying that if Arizona's law had contained similar exceptions, "it might well have passed constitutional muster."
Stone explained, "Utah's Official English Initiative was carefully drafted to avoid the problems faced by Arizona's law. The use of other languages in the exercise of Constitutional rights such as free speech is specifically protected under subsection 4(a) of the initiative. And while Arizona's law was interpreted so broadly as to apply to informal conversations between government employees and the public, the Utah initiative would allow government employees to use other languages in day-to-day dealings with the publicalthough official documents and meetings would still need to be in English."
More than 56,000 registered voters in Utah signed a petition asking the legislature to pass the Official English Initiative. If the legislature complies, Utah will join twenty-five other states that have English as their official language.
U.S.ENGLISH is a national, non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting English as the common language of the United States. The group was founded in 1983 by the late Senator S.I. Hayakawa of California, and now has over 1.3 million members nationwide, and over nine thousand in Utah.
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